A paintball marker uses compressed gas, such as air or nitrogen, to propel spherical projectiles including a colored liquid enclosed in a fragile gelatin casing. The projectiles are called paintballs, and they were originally used e.g. to mark objects, hence the name paintball marker.
Today, paintball markers are widely used for target practice and in mock war games, where participants try to “mark” members of another team to send them of the game field. In such games, it is critical to have markers with high capacity (many balls), rapid firing and satisfactory reliability (no jamming balls, etc).
A paintball marker is normally provided with a paintball loader mounted on the upper side of the marker. The loader is essentially a container for holding a supply of paintballs to be loaded into the marker. The balls are fed through an outlet into the marker, where they are pushed through the barrel of the marker by means of e.g. compressed air. In many paintball loaders, the paintballs are simply pulled by gravity through the outlet. More sophisticated loaders, however, typically employ some kind of battery powered feeding arrangement, which uses force to feed the paintballs through the outlet and into the marker. Such a mechanism increases the firing rate and reduces the risk of paintball jam. The feeding arrangement also ensures that the marker can be used also when not held in an upright position.
In later years, significant efforts have been made to improve the performance of paintball markers and in particular the paintball loaders. Such improvements include various types of feeding arrangements, see e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 8,950,386 to the present inventor.
Another area subject to improvement is the holding capacity of the loader, i.e. the number of paintballs it can hold. For example, document US 2012/103316 shows a paintball loader including a ramp member which is pivotable between two positions. In a first, lowered position, the ramp is depressed to increase the free volume of the loader, so as to hold a maximum number of balls. In a second, raised position, the ramp is elevated to form a ramp sloping in the direction of the feeding arrangement.
However, the force required to depress the ramp in US 2012/103316 is significantly weaker at the end of the ramp furthest away from the pivoting edge, and significantly stronger closer to the edge. This provides an unsatisfactory pressure distribution and function, Also, the ramp in US 2012/103316 provides rather limited additional storage. It would be desirable to even further increase the holding capacity of paintball loaders.